


Making it Work

by Rakuyou_Tenshi (Citrus_Luver)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Genderbending, Kid Fic, Starfleet Academy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26010727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Citrus_Luver/pseuds/Rakuyou_Tenshi
Summary: Their meeting on the shuttle to Starfleet hadn’t been the first time they met.  In fact far from it, a month and half earlier, after catching her husband of ten years screwing her best friend, Lena had a weekend stand with a man with eyes like the deep end of the pool.  A man she doesn’t know, a man she met at the bar, a man she thought she would never see again, who would just be a weekend escape.Except when it’s not...Now, six weeks later on a shuttle to Starfleet because her ex had taken everything but the clothes on her back, she meets him again.Or…How Jim Kirk knocked Lena up.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 30
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

Leonarda Horatia McCoy does not understand how her life could have gone so wrong. Who she pissed off in that other life. When she took that left turn instead of right.

But somehow she is where is she.

Somehow she is standing in front of Riverside Shipyard. The grime and grease is thickening. It makes her stomach lurch and turn.

She runs her fingers through her hair, dark brown, almost black. Long wavy curls frames her heart shaped face. It has become unruly in the stifling humid heat. A late heatwave has overtaken the central states. It feels warmer here than the Georgia she had left behind.

She takes a deep breath.

“Okay Lena,” she mutters to herself. Her stomach twists again. She is tempted to reach for her hip flask, an ancient old thing that her granpappy had given her on her twenty-first birthday. 

As the only girl surrounded by a family that traditionally only has boys, her granpappy didn’t know what to do with her, so he had treated her like one of the boys. 

She remembers her mama’s extreme displeasure when she would come home covered in sweat and grime. Mud and straw would cake her hair after spending long summer days working on her granpappy’s farm. Her fondest memories were of racing through the peach orchards on a beautiful brown mustang.

Her mama had never gotten along well with her father-in-law. Lena understands. She’s her mama’s only daughter out of five children. She’s the middle child surrounded by boys.

Her mama had hoped for a daughter like herself, who liked tea parties, dancing, singing and her mother’s greatest passion, beauty pageants.

Lena had paid her dues. She, willing or not, had climbed the ladder and been crowned Miss Federation at eighteen. 

The lifelong lessons she had endured had stuck. She walks with her head held high and her back straight as a board. Her makeup always matches her clothes. 

However she definitely _isn’t_ the perfect daughter.

She had fallen for her brother’s college roommate, Joshua Harrison Darnell, who everyone called Joss. He was dashing and charming, with chocolate brown eyes. 

The night she won Miss Federation, Joss had been there. Slipping away from the revelry, Joss had found her looking up at the stars. He called her beautiful, brushed aside her curls and kissed her beneath the willow trees. 

She lost her virginity that night. Her mama had been beside herself when she and the rest of the world found out. 

She and Joss had a shotgun wedding, without the baby, and definitely under the critical scunity of Georgia’s high society. ‘Baby watch Darnell‘ as her brother jokingly called it much to her mother’s displeasure. However when no baby came and went, even the high nose Georgian woman lost interest, ready to find their next scoop.

Then Lena went to college and medical school, and babies were almost all but forgotten. While her friends had babies, Lena got her medical degree. 

While her friends were planning play dates and housewarming parties, Lena was learning to save lives.

Her mama wanted grandbabies while her papa wanted a partner. 

She always promised next year… 

She was twenty-five when they first started trying. 

Then a year and another past without any sign of success. 

And she and Joss did it all…

They spent their savings, their retirement, mortgaged everything for drugs to IVF. 

At the time, she thought it was punishment for her transgressions. Later, she wondered if it actually someone saving her.

Later, much later when the pain and anger finally dissipated she would find it ironic that the day she caught Joss in bed with another woman, she had just come home from receiving another injection. That while she was coming home ready to have sex with her husband like it was her duty or something, like it was her fault that they didn’t have a baby, he was fucking another woman.

That same day, she had finally convinced her fertility doctor after months of arguing to give her a stronger dose. A dose that would prolong her ovulation cycle with the slimmest of chances of causing a high order pregnancy. She had even gone to the store and bought a new set of lingerie, lacy black that Joss always seemed to like on her.

Now, Lena just feels like she got the short end of the stick.

They had a messy, bitter divorce with Joss taking everything. He blamed her for everything, and incredulously they believe him.

He had taken everything, the house, the cars...

Everything...

He only left her with the clothes on her back.

And that…

That is why she’s here in Riverside Shipyard about to board a shuttle despite being deadly afraid of flying. It is why she’s signed away her life to Starfleet.

While she knows her pa could have gotten her a position at his hospital, she feels like she has already brought enough shame to her family. She can’t stand to see the disapproving looks from her family anymore. All four of her brothers have _normal_ , happy families with a whole gaggle of children among them.

So she signed up for Starfleet because it was a chance to start fresh. A chance for her to practice medicine in a place where no one knows who she is. It is a chance to start fresh.

With 

No more men…

No more romance…

No more lovers or talk of babies…

She was done with it all…

She was going to concentrate on her profession. 

So she holds up her head, marches onto the shuttle and straight into the closest restroom.

Now, if only fate thought the same way...

She has barely been in the restroom for five minutes when a loud bang sounds from the door. It is followed by a female voice that could rival her mama’s. 

“Ma’am, you need to take a seat.”

_Fuck…_

She hates making a scene. So unwittingly she opens the door and is met by a woman equally as scary as her mama. There is a frown on her face as she stares at her. Like she disapproves of everything that Lena stands for.

Lena feels herself paling.

“Ma’am, do you need a doctor?”

“No.” She shakes her head.

“You need a doctor,” the woman seems to decide for herself. She grabs her by the arm and drags her into the now full shuttle. The other cadets, green and young, stare at her with wild eyes. She hears the muffled snickering coming from a boy closest to her. 

_Great..._

“Damnit, are you people deaf? I told you I don’t need a doctor. I am a doctor.” She clarifies.

She curses wildly as the woman pushes her further and further from the restroom.

“You need to take a seat,” the woman says. She’s not listening to anything Lena is saying.

“I had one in the bathroom, with no windows.”

She’s still pushing her.

“Damn it, I suffer from aviophobia. It means fear of dying in something that flies.”

“Ma’am, for your own safety sit down, or else I’ll make you sit down.”

Maybe it was fate or maybe it is Lena’s desire to appease this woman, for whatever reason Lena takes _that_ seat. And the thing is if she had paid attention to the bright blue eyed young man with dried blood down his shirt, she definitely wouldn’t have sat there. 

But she didn’t…

She didn’t even take a second glance at her seat mate as she splatters out, “I might throw up on you.”

She glares at the young cadet sitting across from her who looks to be half her age who is now eyeing her like she’s only a piece of meat. 

_Stupid kid..._

Cause he is. They all are on this shuttle. Too green, too wet behind the ears…

Her previously silent seat mate answers. He doesn’t stray away for her like most would in this situation. “I think these things are pretty safe.” 

“Don't pander to me, kid: one tiny crack in the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. A solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats. And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding! Space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence.” 

“I hate to break it to you, but Starfleet operates in space.”

“Yeah, well, I got nowhere to go. My ex took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I got left is my bones.”

And ain’t that just fucking pathetic she thinks as she draws out her granpappy’s hip flask and takes a deep draw. It’s only as she passes it to her seat mate that her breath catches.

“Jim Kirk.” He says in _that_ voice, that too sure, too cocky voice.

“McCoy, Lena McCoy,” she says more on autopilot than anything else. She tries not to stare as he takes a swing out of _her_ flask. 

_Jim Kirk…_

She feels ridiculous that she hadn’t known. 

_Jim fucking Kirk…_

She recognizes those god damn blue eyes. Those lips, the same lips that have now touched her hip flask. 

And those hands…

She’s taken back to less than two months earlier…

_Joss and Clarissa…_

_In their marital bed…_

_Her husband and her best friend…_

_Ex-husband…_

_And_

_Ex-best friend…_

_She corrects herself._

_She feels so foolish, so ridiculous._

The divorce had been quick and efficient like everything else in this world. It had taken less time for Lena to become a single woman again than to get married in the first place.

She hadn’t intended to go, but an old friend from her high school days insisted. That was how Lena found herself on a riverboat in the middle of Lake Michigan less than a week after her entire world seemed to have fallen apart. 

She had never been a gambling lady. She knew enough about odds and statistics to know the house _always_ wins. 

On the second day, she had left her friend at the slots and found herself drowning herself in alcohol at the bar. It had been _there_ that she had met him.

The blond haired, bright blue eyed specimen, who was definitely not average, definitely not Joss.

His voice sounded like butter.

He was dashing, attractive.

Everything that made Lena hot and flustered. Maybe it had been the drinks, or all the hormones she had been injected with, or maybe it was just fate.

For whatever reason, she found herself in his room not even half an hour later.

What they did in that room would have made a sober Lena blush. He had a way with his lips, his hands, his body. He was confident, and he knew how to make her feel good.

She found herself to be putty in his arms. Like she had been transformed into a new person when she left his room two days later with a slight limp. Her friend gave her knowing look.

And Lena figured that would be _that_.

She would go back to living her life. She would never see him again.

It had just been one wild weekend.

Except it wasn’t.

Because here he was now.

_Jim Fucking Kirk…._

She hadn’t recognized him then but now, with her mind less muddled, she did recognize him. 

He was Jim Kirk. 

_The Kelvin baby…_

And they had fucked.

Lena’s mind races. Her knowledge of men suddenly makes her worried. Men unlike women like trophies, notches on their bedpost. She knows enough men, her brothers, their friends, Joss, to know when men get together they like to talk about their escapades.

If it ever gets out…

Lena shudders at the very thought.

Before she can think or say anything, she feels a warm body against her shoulder. She turns and sees that he has fallen asleep… on her shoulder. The cadets around her snicker. Only one, a African woman with class, Lena recognizes it when she sees it, gives her a pitting look.

His breath tickles the side of her cheek. She feels his heartbeat through his shirt. 

His warmth against her skin…

And unexpectedly, she finds herself relaxing. She forgets she’s thousands of meters in the air.

It’s a long two hour shuttle ride. One Jim Kirk sleeps the entire way through.

When he wakes to the shuttle jostling as it finally touches down, he’s deeply apologetic, borderline annoying. “You should have shoved me off.”

Lena just shrugs her shoulder as she undoes her harness. 

Jim gives her a bemused look before slapping her on the shoulder and following her off the shuttle. They are ushered into a nondescript building and handed a stack of bright red uniforms, before being separated by gender.

Jim waves at her as she follows behind the other females. In the changing room, Lena feels like she is in high school again. The ‘girls’, Lena can’t think of them as anything else are giggling. They are whispering about how hot the guys are. Lena rolls her eyes as she pulls on the mini skirt. It shows an ungodly amount of leg.

She’s buttoning up her blouse when she catches Jim being mentioned. 

“He’s so hot.”

“Men like that should not be allowed to exist.”

Lena rolls her eyes.

“What you think?” The girl next to her nudges her. 

Lena pauses.

“‘Bout?”

“The blond haired, blue eyed hunk, of course. Do you know him?”

Lena pauses. A flash of Jim licking a line down her body comes to mind. “No!” 

The girl had clearly been joking gives her a startled look.

“He’s just a mindless country boy who’s too sure of himself,” the African woman says, saving Lena. They forget about her as they question her. Lena manages to slip outside, back into the gathering room. Most of the male cadets are already there. 

She spies Jim in the corner in his reds. Unlike her, he looks damn good in it. Her heart races. 

_Stop it, Lena. You’re a grown woman. He’s just a weekend fling._

“Hey!” 

“Jesus Christ!” Lena snaps. Jim’s wide smile greets her. 

“Can’t believe it’s started already.”

“What?”

“The indoctrination, Bones.”

_Bones…_

She ignores it, thinking she must have heard wrong. “What you talking about?”

“Already got us in these monkey suits.” Jim tugs on his collar. 

Lena rolls her eyes. “You look fine.”

“Not as fine as you.” Jim smiles. 

“I am not going to award that comment with a statement.”

“Whatever you say, Bones.”

That word again, before she can think about it further, they are called to follow who Lena can only assume to be a Starfleet instructor. Jim wiggles his eyebrows and follows. Lena rolls her eyes before getting in line behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Lena had thought with her in the medical track and Jim in command, because of course he’s in the command track, they would never see each other again. However, it seems fate is never that nice to Lena.

She doesn’t know how he does it, but the next morning, at seven in the morning, the front desk pages her that she has a guest. 

“A Mr. Kirk is here to see you.” 

Her mind blanks for a second. She almost says she doesn’t know any Mr. Kirk, then a pair of blue eyes flashes in her mind. Her eyes snap open. 

“Let him up,” she says. She pulls on her Starfleet issued nightgown and just manages to tie up her hair before the door to her apartment slides open.

One too cheerful for this early in the morning, Jim Kirk bounces inside like a puppy.

“Wow, I feel like I picked the wrong track,” is the first thing out of Jim’s lips as he enters. He seems visibly impressed.

Lena doesn’t mention how she got the room. 

_No grown daughter of mine is living in a dorm._

A voice that sounds too much like her mama resonates in her mind.

“Coffee?” Lena asks as she walks into her kitchen. She was taught to be polite.

“Yes please.” 

Jim flops down on her couch like they are familiar with each other. Lena feels her face reddening when she remembers his mouth running down the length of her body.

She starts her coffee maker before going to the fridge. She pauses. “Did you eat?” She turns and finds Jim on his PADD.

“Just a breakfast bar.” Jim looks up. 

Lena takes out a loaf of bread, some sausages and eggs. Her mama had made sure she knows how to cook. At first Lena hadn’t liked it, too patriarchal. However later, she found it therapeutical. She whips up two breakfasts for herself and Jim. 

Jim goes a tad red when she sets down a plates.

“Bones, you didn’t have to.”

It’s that word again, ‘bones’. He’s definitely calling her that.

“Why you keep calling me that?”

Jim freezes. “Huh?”

“Bones.”

“Oh.” Jim looks down. 

_Is there a flash of red on his cheeks?_

If so, it’s gone almost immediately. 

“My ex took the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I got left is my bones.” Jim finally says, in false alto and a southern drawl.

“I do not sound like that.” 

“You kind of do, Bones.” Jim smirks. 

Suddenly feeling a bit childish, Lena reaches over and bites off half of Jim’s sausage. Jim looks at her with wide eyes before they both break out laughing. It’s only when they have finished their breakfast that Lena realizes she never told him to stop calling her _that_. 

They are nursing their coffees when Jim brings up why he is here so early. “So I was thinking since we both aren’t from here and they going to ship us out to boot camp…”

Lena almost chokes on her coffee. “Boot camp.”

“Yeah, desert training.”

Lena raises an eyebrow. Her mind is already racing. 

“It’s suppose to be a bonding thing they do.”

“Bonding my ass, I’m a doctor not a…” Jim gives her an amused look, and she stops. 

“Anyways, I was thinking we could go sightseeing. I found a list of places.” He shows her a list. It has all the highlights, a whole day planned.

_No._

She can’t. She can’t grow attached to him.

Jim, like he can read her, smiles. “Come on, Bones. It’ll be fun.”

And somehow, thirty minutes later, she finds herself on a crowded bus with Jim Kirk.

She keeps telling herself it’s just one day, just once. She’s doing it because she had no plans for the day, and she does want to see the city.

The thing is she actually has fun, more fun than she has had in years. She’s surprised just how much she and Jim have in common in terms of likes and dislikes. They both have a raw sense of humor. They both seem to enjoy the smaller things in life, the things that most people overlook.

Amusedly, she also learns that Jim is totally a history nut. He’s obsessed with the past: cars, music, movies, anything related to pop culture. Lena finds herself literally dragging him away from the vinyls. 

He also somehow manages to drag her halfway across the Golden Gate Bridge.

_Damn it, Jim!_

They end the day in a club despite Lena protesting there is no way the bouncer will let them in. Neither one of them are wearing ‘clubbing’ clothes.

“Bones, we don’t need clubbing clothes.” Jim flutters his eyelids. She kinds of wishes Jim isn’t right when the bouncers doesn’t even give them a second look. Jim gives her the ‘I told you so’ look, and Lena kind of wants to punch him.

At first it’s okay. Jim orders them both a drink at the bar. However it quickly turns sour when Lena leaves to use the restroom. When she returns, she finds Jim dancing with a pretty girl with red hair and long legs. They are grinding against each other. She is clearly into him.

She storms out the bar feeling like a fool. She shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, it’s no different than their own weekend so many weeks ago.

But for some reason it hurts. It really hurts.

She thinks the world has thrown her a bone when she get a comm from Starfleet Medical. There has been an accident, and they need all the help they can get.

It means no desert retreat.

Most of all, it means not seeing Jim.

Being back in the hospital again after so many weeks, Lena realizes how much in her element this is. This is where she belongs, saving lives, not fooling around with Jim.

She’s so busy that it pushes any thoughts of Jim or Starfleet aside. Here, she’s just a doctor.

However, a week later when the freshman class returns from a week of bonding. She knows they have returned due to the influx of cadets being treated for sun stroke and sprained knees. She finds herself constantly looking for a man with blond hair and blue eyes who never shows up.

Then classes start and by then Lena has mostly forgotten about that night, and the name ‘Jim Kirk’ doesn’t haunt her dreams anymore.

And of course that’s when Jim slides back into her life, literally and figuratively.

“Bones, I thought you dropped out.” He slides into the seat next to her. All he has with him is a PADD and a large thermos. 

Before she can respond, the professor walks in. It’s an old man with a monotone voice. 

Ten minutes in, Lena can barely keep her eyes open. She’s only awake because all her years in medical school has taught her tricks on how to stay awake. 

She’s not the only one fighting sleep. She sees the signs around her from her fellow cadets, dazed eyes and half open mouths. The only one who doesn’t even try to fight it is the man sitting next to her.

When class ends, she’s half tempted to just leave Jim there, asleep. 

She doesn’t know what comes over her. However she picks up Jim’s thermos, unscrews the lid and of course it’s not hot. She wonders what her grandpappy would think as pours it down Jim’s back. Jim immediately jolts awake.

“Shit!” He glares at her. “What the hell, Bones?! That was some good quality whiskey.” He tries to grab the thermos from Lena but misses. Lena steps back and takes a swing. 

She makes a face. “This ain’t no quality whiskey, kid.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, you got no taste in alcohol, kid.” She drops the thermos on the desk. “Also class is over.”

She picks up her bag and leaves.

“Friday.” Jim calls out before she steps out of the room.

Lena looks back, confused.

“Show me on Friday.”

Lena doesn’t answer.

She doesn’t see Jim the rest of the day or the day after. However at eight on Wednesday, Jim slides into the seat next to her just before class starts. She doesn’t give him much of a second glance. 

When class ends, Jim is awoken by a cold spray of disgusting bourbon. Once again Jim mentions Friday.

On Friday, which should be the best day after a long week of classes, fuck she’s almost thirty and back in school, happens to contain her most dreaded class of the semester, double hour of flying.

While technically she could have postponed flight training for years, that had never been her motto in life. She might be a little bit of a masochist. Then again she has to be to get through medical school, but she doesn’t believe in pushing her problems to the side.

So she signs up for a full year of flight training to get it over with it.

And for better or for worse, Jim is naturally in her class. Naturally, Jim is excited and talented.

Somehow they are paired together, “initials Bones, JKLM,” Jim says cheekily. 

Lena blinks, confused.

“Jim Kirk, Lena McCoy, it’s aligned in the stars.”

Before Lena can protest and say Jim has been watching too many movies, not that she knows whether or not Jim watches holo movies. It’s just that it sounds like it’s a line from a rom com that she may or may not be obsessed with. 

The instructor tells them to hop into the death contraption. 

_Into the fire…_

“Bones, you okay?” Jim asks. 

“Peachy.”

Somehow, she manages to get through flight training. She’s also glad Jim is her partner. Naturally, he’s a genius at flying, and somehow manages to pull her complete lack of talent through. As she stumbles out of the cockpit her only thought is it’s going to be a long year.

She’s so out of it she doesn’t say ‘no’ when Jim reminds her of their ‘date’. Not that she couldn’t use a drink after what she’s been through.

Jim shows up at her door at exactly seven, on the dot. He’s wearing his leather jacket, the one he had on the day they met, sans blood.

His hair has been brushed back. He flashes his pearly whites as Lena lets him in. “Let me grab my bag then we can go.”

Jim nods. He sits down on her couch like he belongs _here_. Lena pushes that thought away. She hurries and grabs her handbag. When she returns, Jim is rummaging through her fridge. “Jim?”

His head pops out from behind the door, a half eaten apple in his head.

“You always raid people’s fridges?”

“We shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.”

“Lightweight.” Lena rolls her eyes.

“Hey!”

Of course Lena finds out quickly Jim isn’t a lightweight.

Lena has always been proud of her alcohol tolerance. It got her through many long nights especially after her marriage imploded. However it soon becomes evident that Jim is able to match her glass for glass.

By the end of the night, Lena is sure of two things.

One, Jim definitely doesn’t realize she’s the woman from that night. 

Two, he just wants to be friends…

And she realizes that would be nice.

_Having a friend…_

The thought flees from her mind when her stomach churns. She runs to the bathroom and promptly throws up.


	3. Chapter 3

Her nausea doesn’t seem to go away the next day. She drags herself out of bed feeling like something has died on her tongue.

The whole weekend, she finds herself hovering over her toilet like a satellite over a planet. She wonders if this is a sign that she is getting old.

By Monday morning, she still feels miserable. It takes all her willpower and more to drag herself to class. She must look as horrible as she feels because even Jim seems worried when he slides into the seat next to her. She feels a little guilty when she runs out of the classroom the moment class ends to throw up instead of waking Jim up. When she returns to the classroom, Jim is no longer there. She decides she made the right choice instead of waking him up by throwing up all over him.

The nausea doesn’t seem to ever leave her. She finally decides it’s not a hangover or a stomach bug, but probably just that synthesized food doesn’t agree with her after spending a lifetime of eating natural food. Her mother never allowed food synthesizers in their home, and she made sure Lena knew how to cook. While the nausea has caused her appetite to decrease, she finds herself putting on weight at an alarming rate. 

She, who has always wore size thirty-two pants, finds she has to go up to a size thirty-six jeans. She still feels bad about the scene she caused with quartermaster. 

_“Here you go, cadet.”_

_She had gone in to get a new set of uniforms. She’s not sure what Starfleet uses in their laundry, but all her uniforms seemed to have shrank in the wash. She had popped the button on her skirt this morning and was now holding it up with a hair tie._

_“Thank you.” Lena takes the offered pile and offhandedly checks to make sure this is the correct size. Her eyes bug out. “You must have made a mistake.”_

_The quartermaster looks at her with an odd expression._

_“These are much too big.”_

_“Ah, yes, the words of woman, never believe…”_

_“No, you don’t understand.” Lena is fuming now. She knows what this man is about to say. “I’ve worn size thirty-two pants since I was sixteen.”_

_It seems Jim is everywhere because it’s Jim who leads her away become she can start a scene in the hallway._

Like everything, Lena learns to deal with the constant nausea. She keeps saline crackers and finds herself drinking mint tea instead of coffee to get her through her classes. 

The academy and her hours at Starfleet Medical keep her busy. She’s even joined the swim team to try to keep her weight under control although she’s not sure she can keep that up with everything else on her plate. 

Before she realizes it, she’s been at the Academy for nearly a month.

She and her fellow cadets seem to have all fallen into the monotonous rhythm that is life at Starfleet Academy. Even Jim Kirk, much to her surprise, seems to be buried in his work. 

Besides during their shared classes and their Friday night drinks, she rarely sees him.

It’s a rare Thursday morning, in late October, that she sees Jim. It’s a misty morning. He’s in his red cadet uniform. He’s carrying a stack of books that are way too tall for anyone to safely carry by themselves.

“Jim!”

She jogs up to him.

Jim, with that now all too familiar sheepish look on his face, pops out from behind the stack of books. He looks embarrassed.

“Bones.”

“Let me help you with some of these.” Lena scolds, reaching for the stack.

“I got it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll throw out your back,” Lena argues, her eyebrows dancing as she berates him.

Jim chuckles, this deep chest chuckle, as he passes her three books, far too few compared to the amount he’s still carrying.

“What you doing with so many books anyways?” She says off hand, the title of the topmost book gives her a headache just looking at it.

“Classes and light reading.”

“Light reading?” Lena raises an eyebrow. As much as she likes to read, none of these books in Jim’s massive pile looks like light reading. 

In the back of Lena’s mind, she wonders if anyone else knows about this side of Jim. Since being at the Academy, Lena has begun to realize the difference between Academy life and college or even high school life isn’t _that_ different. There are always rumors, groups, images and cliches. Jim’s image is that he is a player and sleeps with anything with two legs. She’s heard that one plenty of times in the locker room. 

“Got to graduate in three years, Bones.” He flashes that Kirk smile. The one that makes her hot and reminded of _that_ weekend. 

“Right.” Lena rolls her eyes.

“And make Captain in five, so we can sail the stars together.”

Lena feels her stomach flip at that moment. Her heart races. Her mind goes to Jim’s lips trailing down her stomach.

“Me as captain and you as my CMO.” Jim continues.

“What you talking about?” Lena grouses. The image immediately fades from her mind. She raises an eyebrow. 

“Our plan, Bones.”

“You should get your corn-feed mind out of the clouds, Jim Kirk. These two feet are staying firmly planted on terra firma, thank you very much.”

“What ever you say, Bones.”

She doesn’t like the look in Jim’s eyes. For as stubborn as she is, she knows equally well that Jim is equally as stubborn. 

She still doesn’t when or how Jim holds the door open for her. The calamity of voices fills the hallway takes her back to her college days that she realizes they are at Jim’s dormitory. 

Despite marrying before her freshman year of college, Lena had spent a freshman year of college living in a dorm. An requirement from her school that no note could avoid. She’s suddenly taken back to that year, noisy neighbors, screaming, doors slamming, everything…

She’s never been to Jim’s housing assignment before, and now she realizes why…

Jim lives on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator. Something Lena definitely doesn’t understand as she climbs up the steps. Jim, on the other hand, looks completely unphased by it. 

Jim’s dorm is a small standard one room dormitory that he shares with an absent roommate. “I’m not even sure if the guy is still at the Academy.” Jim says offhand as he takes the books from Lena.

Lena understands _that_. It’s not only the command track that is competitive. A handful of medical cadets have already dropped out. 

“Want something to drink?”

The word ‘bourbon’ is on her lips, but it’s still early in the day. “Water,” she says instead.

Jim gives her a knowing look before saying he’ll be right back. She finds herself alone in Jim’s room. 

Her mama taught her not to be noisy, but being in Jim’s room, she can’t help it. He’s an enigma she hasn’t been able to crack. Just today, she has discovered a side of him she never knew. 

She is scared her why she cares so much.

Immediately, she notices how few personal things he owns. He doesn’t have trinkets or nicknacks. He doesn’t have a single photo of his family. 

She also notices how neat the room is. Everything seems to have a place. There isn’t a smudge of dust anywhere.

_Her mama would like that._

She is immediately horrified that such a thought would pop into her head.

“Bones?” She jumps when Jim places an ice cold drink against her cheek.

“Christ!” She grumbles taking the drink. It’s decidedly not water as she takes a sip. Her eyes light up at how smooth it is. 

_Maybe he has hope yet._

“This Russian kid down the hall was giving them out.”

_Or maybe not._

“Russian huh?”

“I know, thought it would be vodka.”

“Not going to complain.”

Jim takes a sip. “Damn, that’s good.”

“Lordy.” Lena smacks her lips as she sits down on Jim’s bed. Jim gives her a funny look as she proceeds to pull off her boots. These days she finds the tall heels make her ankles swell up. 

He doesn’t say anything though as she pulls off her jacket. “Damn it’s hot.” She grumbles as she rolls up her shirt sleeves.

Jim coughs. “Want to watch a movie?”

Lena looks up, suddenly realizing she’s basically just undressed herself in Jim’s room. 

“Sure.”

Jim grabs his PADD. Lena scoots over, so Jim can sit down next to her.

It’ll be much later that she realizes that they are on Jim’s bed, but for now Lena doesn’t think of such things. 

Now, she’s watching a silly Halloween movie with who she can most definitely call her best friend. 

It’s then that she learns Jim has never dressed up for Halloween, and she decides that just can’t stand. Halloween has always been a favorite holiday for her growing up. When she was little, her mom used to dress them up in family costumes. Then as she and her brothers got older, they got to pick their own costumes. 

She remembers hay rides, pumpkin patches and playing tricks on the neighbors. 

“Why don’t you show me at the Starfleet Halloween Party then?” Jim suddenly has a victorious look on his face like he planned all of _this_. 

Lena totally feels played, but she knows she can’t say ‘no’ now. However it doesn’t mean she can’t get back at him. “I get to pick what we go as then.”

Jim looks conflicted, but nods. “Fine.”

Lena grins. “We’ll go as Cinderella and Prince Charming.” She says not realizing what she has just done.

Jim looks at her, blinks then says, “Cinderella and Prince Charming?”

“Cinderella and Prince Charming,” Lena repeats, crossing her arms.

“Are you trying to tell me something Bones?” He wags his eyebrows suggestively. 

“Oh my god no!” She pushes him in the arm. “I just always wanted to be Cinderella.” It’s true. Her mama for all her frills and insistence that Lena act more ladylike never approved of fairy tales or love at first sight. Although her auntie in the darkness of night, who swore her to secrecy, claims her mama had once told her she just knew her pa was the _one_ after one date.She never let Lena dress up as a fairy tale princess.

“Well, how can I say no to _that?_ Cinderella and Prince Charming it is then.” Jim unpauses the movie.

It’s later that night as she’s going back to her dorm alone.

_No Jim, I don’t need you walk me home._

She had nearly left a mark on his pretty face when he volunteered. 

It is three in the morning when she realizes exactly what she had suggested.


	4. Chapter 4

“You sly fox!” Christine Chapel shrieks two days later. It seems like every soul in the cafeteria is staring at them due to Christine’s outburst.

Christine blushes before sitting down. 

“You did not,” Christine hisses at her. Lena stabs a piece of her salad. Her stomach is still queasy. She really should get it looked at. However the old adage that doctors make terrible patients definitely applies to her.

“Lena McCoy, you can not leave me hanging like this.”

Lena looks up. “It’s really not a big deal.” It has taken all of two days for Lena to convince herself it isn’t a big deal. She’s not even sure what possessed her to tell Christine in the first place.

“But it is. It’s a coup…” Christine’s eyes widen. “Lena McCoy, is this your way of telling me you’re dating Kirk?”

Her fork chatters to the floor. “No.” She pulls a face. Her stomach turns at the thought. 

_Dating Kirk, as if…_

At that moment, his lips running against her skin comes to mind. 

She feels her cheeks flushing red. 

Christine gives her a look. A look that makes Lena regret ever mentioning anything. It is a look that Lena isn’t fond of. To avoid it, she reaches down for her fork. When she looks back up, Christine is now sporting an Chershire cat smirk. Lena thinks she likes her previous look better.

“You have officially crushed a thousand hopeful hearts, Lena.”

Lena rolls her eyes. It’s not a secret that Jim Kirk is definitely high on most living being’s ‘hottest’ cadet list. Lena also knows Jim doesn’t care.

“And made a thousand enemies.”

Lena raises an eyebrow. 

“The Jim Kirk fan club.”

XXXXXXXXXX

Lena is a disappointed when Jim coms her at the last minute that he can’t go shopping with her. Her heart does a strange twist when Jim tells her to ‘surprise him’. It takes a glass full of whiskey to drown that feeling away.

She catches the train into the city. She gets off in the heart of San Francisco and finds herself among a street of small boutique shops.

It’s there she sees it, a beautiful white, tastefully semi transparent mermaid gown. It’s definitely the wrong dress, but Lena can’t help but stare at it.

It’s definitely a dress that her mother would hate. That would probably cause generations of McCoy’s to turn in their graves, but Lena loves it.

“She’s stunning, huh?”

Lena nearly jumps out of her own skin. A man, a little older than she is, with what has to be the world’s longest nails is standing beside her now. There is a small name tag pinned to his breast pocket, with four simple letters that spells: ‘Adam’.

“The dress, she’s stunning.”

Lena ignores the ‘she’ pronoun and instead nods. “Yes, it’s beautiful.”

“A beautiful dress for a beautiful lady on her special day?” His eyes seems to twinkle as he looks at Lena.

“What?” Lena almost turns ten shades of red, suddenly realizing this is probably the store owner who is trying to sell her the dress in front of her. A dress that has to be way over her budget. “No, no. I… I need a ballgown, for Halloween.”

“Shame, she would look amazing on you. However, we have a lovely selection of ballgowns.”

And he isn’t wrong. An hour later, Lena leaves the tiny boutique with a beautiful blue gown. As she leaves, she can’t help but sneak one last look at the mermaid gown. She isn’t normally vain when it comes to her looks, but there is a part of her that has to agree with Adam. It would _definitely_ look stunning on her.

XXXXXXXXXX

“Wow!” It’s the first thing Jim says when she opens the door on Halloween night. It’s because of years of beauty pageant experience that she managed to finish getting ready on time. She had unfortunately found herself in a slight bind when the dress didn’t fit after just a week. Luckily, she has a bit of seamstress experience and was able to fix it herself. She definitely needs to go on a diet or something.

She still can’t believe at _her_ age, she has succumbed to the freshmen weight gain. 

“You look amazing.”

“Thank you.” Lena finds herself blushing. “You clean up well yourself.” Because it’s true, in his white suit, with his blond hair and ocean blue eyes, Jim looks like an actual prince. Lena can almost understand how Jim has a fan club.

“Ready?”

“In a sec,” she grabs her medical pouch and slips it inside the folds of her dress. Jim gives her a questionable look.

“We’re going to a party full of crazy college age cadets.”

“Uh huh,” Jim nods, clearly just going along to humor her. 

“If you get some crazy allergic reaction, don’t come running to me.” Lena pokes him in the side as she slides into her ‘glass’ slippers. 

“Why, you going to run away from me at midnight?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, lucky for me, I know where you live.”

Lena laughs. “That sounds kind of stalkerish.” She lets the door shut behind them. She lets Jim get the door.

She’s a little self conscious that it’s too much when even her normally completely silent doorman complements her. She notices his surprised look. She guesses it’s because she’s normally in scrubs or her cadet reds.

She’s not sure if she’s relieved or a little disappointed there isn’t a pumpkin carriage waiting for her. “I almost got you a pumpkin carriage,” Jim says as if he can read her mind. “Then I thought it would be too much.”

“Definitely.” Lena agrees. She doesn’t want to make a scene.

However it takes about ten minutes to realize being in possibly the ultimate ‘couple’ costume with one Jim Kirk is enough to cause a scene.

She hears the chatter and the whispers. 

_What’s so good about her?_

_How much sex did she offer him?_

She almost punched someone out at for _that._

It’s all a little much by the first hour. Her happy mood has completely disappeared. She kinds of even wish Jim would just leave. He has surprisingly not disappeared the entire time they are at the party.

Like he can read her mind, he asks her between the raging music and the whispers. “Want to leave?”

“Please.” She grimaces at how eager she sounds. 

She suddenly feels infinitely better the second they are out of that room. Jim looks a little guilty. “Sorry about that.”

“What? Why?”

“I should have punch them.”

“Definitely not, we aren’t primates.”

Jim laughs, pulling on his collar. “So I heard there is a better party downtown. With better alcohol.”

“Say no more.”

They meet up in less than ten minutes in casual clothes, both deciding it would be more comfortable.

Lena immediately enjoys this new venue more than the Academy’s Halloween party. They had picked up a pair of masks on the way, and it seems most of the patrons at the party aren’t doing much more than they are. The alcohol is amazing, and Lena almost tells Jim so. She bites her tongue at the last moment cause she doesn’t want to boast his ego.

“Want to dance?” Jim asks her after their third drink.

She’s tempted to say no, but he asked her so politely she says yes.

Unlike most people, Jim is a surprisingly good dancer. He’s all smiles that makes her cheeks flush red. He’s hot and sweaty. And…

_Fuck._

Her stomach twists uncomfortably. Jim looks alarmed as Lena runs to the restroom. She promptly throws up. As she flushes the toilet, she admits to herself she should probably go to medical. 

“This is really embarrassing but do you have a spare pad?” Someone asks.

Startled, Lena shakes her head. 

It’s only as she is washing her hands that she realizes she’s late, really really late. 

_Fuck..._


End file.
